[3] The main sources of replacement labor were Europe and, later on, Japan, but small numbers of Chinese immigrants are said to have reached Brazil during the 19th century (less than 3 thousand total).
[5] These Macau immigrants can usually speak and understand Portuguese (its Creole, Macanese or Patuá, is also spoken), allowing them to adjust more easily to life in Brazil.
[3] The Brazilian government and plantation owners started looking to different areas of the world to try to find suitable groups to import into the country, Europe ended up being the most relevant, and, later on, Japan and the Ottoman Empire were also major sources of immigration to Brazil, but India and China were also considered.
[3] The issue of how to replace slave labor raised huge controversies in Brazil, and there were both sides that defended and criticized the alternative of inviting in Chinese immigrants to work in the coffee plantations [3] One such argument that was a cause of much controversy was the idea of racial "whitening", which is a concept inspired in the ideas of Social Darwinism and eugenics that defended the need to import more European immigrants into Brazil in order to "whiten" its population.
For instance, in 2007, the Brazilian judicial system had settled down the largest shopping center and 50 stores in São Paulo, and arrested six merchants.
25 de Março street in São Paulo is a place with 2.5 km in length (approximately 1.55 miles) where some Chinese Brazilians mainly sell their merchandise to make a living.
There are more than 3,000 Chinese Brazilian-run stores out of 4,000 shops in total, and the expansion took place in less than 30 years, replacing a previous generation of mostly Arab shop-owners.
A similar phenomenon exists in the SAARA commercial district of Rio de Janeiro, where around 20% of the shops are owned by Chinese immigrants and their descendants when traditionally that area was dominated by Syrian and Lebanese businesses.
The Brazilian House of Representatives and the city of São Paulo Parliament passed the proposal of setting August 15 as "Chinese Immigrants Day.